Google’s Innovations in the Android Platform

While Apple gets a tremendous amount of credit for launching the iPhone, much of smart phone innovation occurs in Google’s Android operating system. While Apple created the first modern smart phone, many of Google’s additions have become a quintessential part of the smart phone experience.

Google’s notification menu is still considered the best around. By giving users a method of quickly accessing important information, the notification bar and menu makes it easier to check new messages, emails or information from various apps. Apple is still trying to catch up with Google in this area.

Further, Google made turn-by-turn navigation a standard feature of smart phones, and they even created the mapping program used by Apple until iOS 6.0. Google was also the first to include voice features on their smart phone; Apple’s Siri came along after Google Voice Search, and Google Now has, according to experts, surpassed Siri in most areas.